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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24452578">The Way That People Come and Go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland'>nonisland</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>amie Éponine [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Class Issues, Community Outreach, Gen, Not Pastiche, you don't get to have just one token poor person in your revolution enjolras</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:48:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24452578</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>For just an instant Enjolras looks confused, and then he nods. It makes <i>sense</i> that Enjolras has never considered the world beyond France’s borders. If he gave as much passion to the whole world as he does to France he’d burn up with it. “You think they could be our allies in this?”</p>
  <p>“It follows, doesn’t it?” Feuilly says. “Look at Poland.”</p>
</blockquote><p>Or, a significant part of the rebelling of the historic June Rebellion was done by refugees from nearby bits of Europe busy being carved up by empire, which makes the fact that Feuilly was the only one of les Amis to speak for the world beyond France’s borders even more brow-raising.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Minor or Background Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>amie Éponine [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705690</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Way That People Come and Go</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Content note:</b> Contains non-detailed discussion of hypothetical workplace sexual coercion. Also non-detailed reference to an epidemic (cholera), because that’s a thing we warn for in this hell year I guess.</p>
<p>This nods more than a little at book canon but had to fall short in enough places before I even started writing (primarily a. that it was probably too late for Hugo’s Éponine b. that Hugo’s Marius wasn’t involved in the lead-in to the revolution and c. you know the speech at the barricade where Enjolras goes “it’s so exciting and wonderful that Feuilly is poor” and I cringe every time? yeah, let’s…not) that it’s instead Vaguely Canon Era, Unspecified Source. (Disclaimer: in spite of the changes, les Amis’ take on revolution is still not praxis.)</p>
<p>Title remains from the Carpenters’ “I Need to Be in Love.”</p>
<hr/>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Wages,” Jean Prouvaire says softly, with the self-deprecating look of a rich man talking about money to someone who doesn’t have it.</p>
<p>“What about them?” Feuilly asks. It’s true that Pontmercy has come around to thinking of his translations as work, and so of himself as a worker, but Pontmercy has things Feuilly himself lacks—he’s a lawyer, with the education from childhood to support it; he speaks three languages, and one of them is a sweetly polished French that chimes like steel. It would be nice, really, if someone else <i>could</i> weigh in from time to time.</p>
<p>Éponine says, “It pays better to rob a man than to work for him—isn’t that enough?”</p>
<p>Prouvaire turns to her without hesitation. “But how much would a worker need to be paid for that not to be true?”</p>
<p>“A working man?” Éponine echoes his choice of word. “Or a working woman? You don’t see men selling themselves on the streets because it pays better than factory work, only women.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Prouvaire says, and makes a note. “But how much?”</p>
<p>“What, for—” She cuts her sentence off unfinished. “How much for what?”</p>
<p>Prouvaire grimaces a little, apologetically. “To live on.”</p>
<p>She sighs.</p>
<p>Feuilly should step in and rescue her, but it’s so <i>nice</i> for once not to be the one having to say: well, it costs this much for a week’s worth of bland food since water can be had for free, and this much for the rent of a drafty room, and this much for candles, and this much…</p>
<p>“Which doesn’t sound like a lot to you, I’m sure,” Éponine finishes, and stumbles to a halt, looking at Feuilly for help.</p>
<p>“It’s…depending on the factory, on how long you’ve been there, whether the foreman likes you, it’s anywhere between sixty and eighty hours’ work a week, probably.” Feuilly gives them both a thin smile. “I save on candles by coming here.”</p>
<p>Prouvaire’s brows tug together; the corners of his mouth flicker down. He doesn’t say anything, he’s too polite for that, but just for a moment he <i>looks</i> it as loudly as words. “That makes it a mathematical question, then,” is all he does say. “And if wages were to be changed so the same worker—male or female—can live on say fifty hours’ work, or less, then a few more people would be able to find jobs available—”</p>
<p>Éponine laughs, a harsh burst of sound like a crow’s call.</p>
<p>“There’s no shortage of jobs,” Feuilly says.</p>
<p>“There’s a shortage of humanity,” Éponine adds. “I could find work all legal and proper, if I wanted to ruin my hands and my eyes and my back clawing for every sou, hoping that if I caught the foreman’s eye at least he wouldn’t have the pox.”</p>
<p>Feuilly can’t help but hiss through his teeth at that.</p>
<p>“They could pay more but they won’t,” Enjolras says, resting a hand on the edge of the table at Feuilly’s side. Feuilly startles—he’s not sure when Enjolras had come over to listen. “They won’t pay the same for less work. Is that right?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Feuilly says.</p>
<p>“At least I only ever stole from rich men,” Éponine mutters.</p>
<p>If Feuilly knew her better, he’d point out that poor ones have nothing worth the trouble of stealing, but they’re not on those terms.</p>
<p>Enjolras straightens up again. “That’s another thing we’ll hold them accountable for.”</p><hr/>
<p>A few days later, at the café Musain again, Feuilly is carefully folding his borrowed newspaper when he catches Éponine watching him. Or, rather, watching the newspaper he’s holding.</p>
<p>“Do you want to read it?” he asks.</p>
<p>She hesitates, eyes on the pages. It’s been quite some time since she looked that half-wild, that likely to flee as readily as to come closer. “Are you sure?”</p>
<p>“Combeferre won’t mind, as long as you don’t eat it,” Feuilly says, and gets a smile out of her. “I think he subscribes to every newspaper in Paris.”</p>
<p>“She can eat some of them,” Courfeyrac says as he passes by. “I feel confident that Combeferre would not weep for the destruction of an issue of le Mémorial catholique.”</p>
<p>“Almost every newspaper in Paris,” Feuilly corrects himself.</p>
<p>Courfeyrac pauses, considering. “I think le Mémorial catholique is gone, actually. Good riddance to it.” To Éponine he adds, “If you do find an old issue of that one somewhere around, don’t eat it. You’d probably choke.”</p>
<p>“Noted,” Éponine says. “Did you try?”</p>
<p>Courfeyrac laughs and shakes his head and moves on, and Feuilly offers Éponine the newspaper again.</p>
<p>She takes it carefully and glances over the first page, then shakes her head and hands it back.</p>
<p>“What is it?” Feuilly asks.</p>
<p>“I don’t…”</p>
<p>She’s embarrassed, he realizes. He hadn’t known there was any shame that hadn’t been wrung out of her. He looks at the paper again. The front page has an article about refugees from the German states flooding into Paris, fleeing the horror of cholera piled on top of the political chaos that’s already been inflicted on them. None of it is anything that touches her, surely.</p>
<p>Éponine is watching him look at her. After a long moment, very quietly, she says, “I don’t know why all that matters. Of course I know where”—she hesitates just a moment, thinking—“Prussia and Bavaria and the rest are, but I don’t…”</p>
<p>“Do you want to know?” Feuilly asks. “I can tell you—I’d like to tell you.” He laughs a little self-consciously. “I like to tell <i>everyone</i>. I had to figure it all out myself, more or less. I didn’t like to ask either. But I had to <i>know</i>.”</p>
<p>That seems to decide her. “All right. Just...just so I can keep up, though, and if you don’t mind.”</p>
<p>“Keep up?” Feuilly frowns, confused.</p>
<p>She gestures at the paper. “Well, it’s part of all this, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Feuilly shakes his head. “The refugee communities—it’s not just the Germans, there are Poles and Italians as well, since every country brutalized by bigger powers has its lost—are more isolated than the people we’ve been talking to. By the time they’re part of Paris, they’re not thinking of themselves as refugees; they think of themselves as Parisian, not…Polish or German or Italian. I just studied this because I wanted to know, myself.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Éponine says.</p>
<p>He sets the newspaper aside and begins. “Poland was partitioned in 1772…”</p><hr/>
<p>It’s been wage reform again. Feuilly spends a lot of time talking about wage reform. Éponine is talking with Joly and Laigle and Grantaire, about music from what Feuilly can tell, but he’s not poor-spirited enough to insist she leave that and come over here. Pontmercy is bent over a series of pamphlets with Combeferre.</p>
<p>Neither of them have ever worked for an hourly wage, anyway, and as Feuilly returns his attention to Enjolras and Prouvaire he’s grateful that the two of them—that all of les Amis, really—are <i>asking</i> someone, not just making the decisions themselves out of their inexperience. Enjolras’s waistcoat is scarlet silk, like a scream in the quiet room; he wears it to get attention and draw the eye, and never thinks about the cost of the fabric.</p>
<p>But still, Feuilly is almightily tired of wage reform.</p>
<p>“You know we appreciate what you do for us,” Enjolras says, as if he’s read Feuilly’s mind. It’s one of his more off-putting talents, up there with his ability to transfix a listener with a single look and the way that he could probably make storming the gates of Hell itself sound not just reasonable but logical. “You bring a unique perspective and you sacrifice a great deal of your meager time to do it.”</p>
<p>“I was wondering,” Feuilly says before he can think better of it. Now he’s stuck.</p>
<p>After a moment, Enjolras says, “Wondering?”</p>
<p>“Well—we do have Éponine now too.” Feuilly glances over. Grantaire appears to be making a speech, though from the amusement on the faces of his listeners he’s in a good mood today and not a bad one. Or they might be talking theatre. Still, Éponine is here at the Musain, and no less likely than any of the men she’s with to come if she’s asked to help—more likely than Grantaire, in fact. “She can answer questions about money too, some of the time—or Bossuet could, for that matter, or probably some of the others.” Pontmercy, too, but he might need to borrow Pontmercy.</p>
<p>“Of course,” Enjolras says. “I value your suggestions enormously, though.”</p>
<p>Prouvaire, much more softly than Enjolras’s blazing commendation, asks, “What did you want to do instead?”</p>
<p>“Well…I was thinking about the refugee situation.”</p>
<p>“The…” For just an instant Enjolras looks confused, and then he nods. It makes <i>sense</i> that Enjolras has never considered the world beyond France’s borders. If he gave as much passion to the whole world as he does to France he’d burn up with it. “You think they could be our allies in this?”</p>
<p>“It follows, doesn’t it?” Feuilly says. “Look at Poland.” Prouvaire ducks his head—Feuilly suspects this time it’s to politely hide a smile. “Even after everything they’ve suffered, her people defied Russia for our sake in ’30, and now some of them are here. The Carbonari had enough trouble of their own in Italy, but they still helped too. And the Germans—well, they know what it’s like to want a government that represents them, at least.”</p>
<p>“Hm,” Enjolras says.</p>
<p>“I thought Bahorel might know someone,” Feuilly says. “Pontmercy might be able to translate, among the Germans at least.” It feels silly, now that he’s said it. They can’t be all things to everyone; they can’t even be everything that just the French crying out for revolution want them to be.</p>
<p>“I’ve never really <i>spoken</i> much Italian, but I could try if we needed me to,” Prouvaire says thoughtfully.</p>
<p>Feuilly and Enjolras both look at him in surprise. It’s more of an endorsement than Feuilly had thought to get, from someone as shy as Prouvaire.</p>
<p>Prouvaire shrugs, one-shouldered. “It might be useful,” he says. “And I don’t—I don’t think any of the rest of you know Italian, do you?”</p>
<p>“Just Latin and Greek,” Enjolras says dismissively.</p>
<p>“Just French,” Feuilly says, very dryly. Enjolras has the grace to blush.</p>
<p>Prouvaire nods. “And so, if you need me, I’ll be here.”</p><hr/>
<p>Unsurprisingly, when Enjolras suggests it to him with Feuilly at his side, Bahorel is enthusiastic about the idea of tracking down an affiliate of the Carbonari or a Polish deserter. He’s less sure about where to start with the Germans.</p>
<p>“It’s a brilliant idea,” Courfeyrac says, with a warm nod of approval for Feuilly, “if it works.”</p>
<p>“It wouldn’t take much, necessarily,” Bahorel says. “If we could get in touch with the right people, then they could take care of their organization among themselves, but they’d know when we were planning to start and we’d know if they ran into trouble.”</p>
<p>Feuilly isn’t accustomed to this much attention for his <i>ideas</i>. Enjolras and Combeferre both trust him; Courfeyrac respects him; all three rely on him. But he’s only ever been a spare pair of hands, an extra mind to turn to a task. Anyone might have done just as well.</p>
<p>This is something he’s offered them, himself, and it could easily go wrong. “You think?” he asks Bahorel, glad that at least it won’t be his responsibility to sink all their resources into this.</p>
<p>Bahorel nods. “The Carbonari were well-organized.”</p>
<p>“We’ll hardly have the Carbonari here,” Grantaire says. He’s been losing to himself at dominoes in the corner, but apparently listening in spite of that. “Or a company of Polish troops. What we have are for the most part ordinary German people, who’ve lost their homes, their livelihoods, and their loved ones’ lives. Oh, to be sure, we’ll have some Italian freedom fighters, some Polish ex-soldiers as well as artists, but most of them? This isn’t an army all ready to rise at your call.”</p>
<p>“If you’re not going to offer anything useful,” Enjolras snaps, “you’re welcome to leave us.”</p>
<p>Grantaire looks away first. “You might look around the general neighborhood of the Corinthe,” he says, returning to his game. “It’s affordable, and I’ve heard less French and more of other things around there lately. The beer’s looked almost potable, too, which is not something I often say about beer.”</p>
<p>“Worth a try,” Bahorel says. “Are you coming, Feuilly?”</p>
<p>“I can’t,” Feuilly says, with genuine regret. It was his plan, and it feels wrong not to see it to fruition, but— “I have to be going very soon.”</p>
<p>“Right.” Bahorel looks around. “Pontmercy! I need to borrow you.”</p>
<p>“Try not to involve him in any riots,” Courfeyrac suggests. “He won’t be much use to you if you do.”</p>
<p>Pontmercy, who’s been working by the fire, leaves his papers behind and hurries over. “What is it?”</p>
<p>“We’re going to go talk to some German refugees, if you’re willing,” Bahorel says.</p>
<p>“Oh,” Pontmercy says, eyes widening. He looks from Enjolras to Courfeyrac. “I—I’m not sure how good my accent is, but I can give it a try if you’d like.”</p>
<p>Bahorel grins at him. It’s probably meant to be reassuring, but something about Bahorel’s grin always suggests fire reflecting on steel. “It’s bound to be better than mine, since I have no German at all.”</p>
<p>Feuilly wishes he’d had the time and the resources to teach himself languages as well as history, but with that he wouldn’t even know where to start. With history the words make sense even if the meaning is obscured, and he knows where to look. It would be something, to be able to speak to as well as for these people.</p>
<p>Well, there’s no helping it just now, and he certainly has no objection to Pontmercy and Bahorel—and maybe Prouvaire—speaking for them as well. The more voices, the better.</p><hr/>
<p>Bahorel comes to their next meeting looking triumphant. On a quieter man that look might have been smug, but Bahorel has never been quiet in his existence, and Pontmercy’s quiet extends, Feuilly suspects, to shyness just as Prouvaire’s does. Either way, Pontmercy smiles when he’s thanked, and Prouvaire just dips his head. It’s odd, certainly, imagining the two of them at Bahorel’s side.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t so bad,” Prouvaire says. “You’re going next time, though; plenty of them speak French.”</p>
<p>That had been Feuilly’s biggest regret. “All right,” he says, selfishly relieved that he can still be a part of this.</p><hr/>
<p>There’s a great deal of sameness between the neighborhoods inhabited by the immigrants of Paris and the one Feuilly lives in himself. Buildings are in poor repair, but steps are scrubbed. A tavern has its doors and windows standing open; Feuilly smells thyme and hot oil and something sweetly green, a sudden burst of Southern sunlight in the darkened streets of Paris.</p>
<p>He’s never been to Poland, or Italy or Greece, or the German states, or Hungary or Romania. He’s never been anywhere but his hometown and now here, where he’d come in an attempt to prosper and found himself barely able to manage but with too much here to turn away from. They are all names on paper to him.</p>
<p>“<i>Buongiorno</i>,” says a young woman with a laughing mouth and tired eyes, leaning against her broom on the steps of a bakery. In only slightly accented French she continues, “Can I interest you in anything?”</p>
<p>“No thank—” Bahorel pauses and glances from the young woman to Feuilly. “Have anything we can take with us?”</p>
<p>“I had breakfast,” Feuilly mutters.</p>
<p>The young woman says, “Just bread, at this hour of the day. I could fetch it, if you’re in a hurry.”</p>
<p>Bahorel tosses her a coin and she catches it a little awkwardly, flattening her hand against her chest to keep it from getting away from her or falling down the front of her dress. She pulls her hand away and her eyes widen when she looks at the coin. “You wanted <i>how</i> many loaves of bread?”</p>
<p>“Just the one,” Bahorel says. “Though if you could give us directions to the rue du Renard I’d appreciate it.”</p>
<p>She looks warily from the coin to Bahorel, then shrugs and vanishes into the store.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no doubt that Bahorel knows where the rue du Renard is, but it was a kind thought of his. Feuilly doesn’t say anything, because the young woman might come back out at any moment. She does, handing over the slim loaf to Bahorel and giving them both the directions.</p>
<p>Once they’re on their way again, Bahorel breaks the loaf in half and hands Feuilly the smaller piece. Even so, Feuilly says, again, “I had breakfast.”</p>
<p>“And now we’re having something to keep our energy up while we walk,” Bahorel says firmly. “You heard the girl—all they had is bread, and I don’t need the whole loaf myself.”</p>
<p>Grumbling, Feuilly rips a piece off the loaf and eats it. The texture is different than the bread he’s used to, the flavor a little more mild. It’s good, for all its strangeness.</p>
<p>The rue du Renard, when they get there, is another one of those proud worn-down streets. Bahorel taps on a door and they meet a man by the name of Abano, who nods to Feuilly and has a pleasant and coded conversation with Bahorel about the progress of their “garden.” His accent is a little stronger than the young woman at the bakery’s, and he stumbles over a few words, but he does well enough to be understood, and that’s all he needs.</p>
<p>Feuilly thinks, again, about all the things he doesn’t know—all the things he doesn’t have <i>time</i> to know. He could learn Italian from Prouvaire or German from Pontmercy, maybe, but when? There aren’t enough hours in the week, let alone the day.</p><hr/>
<p>“Should we be giving charity?” Prouvaire asks, a frown between his fine-drawn brows. Enjolras has a map of Paris nailed to the wall—a good one, colored in and longer than his arm, finer than anything Feuilly can imagine tacking holes in just to show it off better—while they discuss their allies: workers, students, gamins, refugees. Joly’s Musichetta is working on some other alliance, but it’s uncertain yet, and they all doubt it will fit neatly on a map.</p>
<p>Combeferre rests his fingers together, thoughtfully. “A lack of regular meals does weaken the constitution as well as discourage the spirit.”</p>
<p>“Saint-Eustache would be the church, I think,” Prouvaire says.</p>
<p>Enjolras’s lips tighten.</p>
<p>Feuilly says, “A lot of the German Confederation is Protestant.” They all turn to look at him with varying degrees of surprise, though Pontmercy nods right after.</p>
<p>“Catch Gavroche in a church,” Éponine adds, which takes the attention off of Feuilly. Laigle laughs at whatever image that calls to mind, and Courfeyrac shakes his head.</p>
<p>“Or, never mind the Protestants,” Feuilly says, thinking about it. “What about the Jews?”</p>
<p>Grantaire, his feet propped up on the seat of an empty chair and a cup of wine in one hand, says, “There’s a synagogue just south of the boulevard St. Martin, if your charity stretches that far.”</p>
<p>“What, so far as a mile?” Combeferre asks. “Charity that can’t is mere convenience.”</p>
<p>“Most people would find theirs falls just short,” Grantaire says, draining his cup and putting it down on the table with a dull thud. “You know that.”</p>
<p>“Certainly charity to the synagogue and whatever Protestant temple is in the area, if charity to the church,” Enjolras says, “but we only have so many funds for our cause. We’ll need guns, ammunition—”</p>
<p>Joly says, “Medicine.”</p>
<p>“—medicine,” Enjolras repeats, then, “Medicine?”</p>
<p>“Do you plan to ask Joly and me to stitch up bullet wounds with thread held in our teeth?” Combeferre asks, voice much too pleasant. “Will you sacrifice your waistcoat or your coat for bandages after your cravat is gone, and should we then wait for the sufferers to faint from pain instead of dosing them with laudanum?”</p>
<p>Enjolras nods. “Medicine. Lumber or bricks, if they can be stored. And—”</p>
<p>“I think it’s never a bad idea to be sure people are fed, if you can,” Courfeyrac says.</p>
<p>Feuilly looks across the room and catches Éponine’s eye; she screws one side of her face into a grimace, quick as a wink but much more bitter. It’s not his money—it’s mostly Enjolras’s and Prouvaire’s—or his place to tell them how to spend it, but the shared understanding in that grimace gives him the courage to say, “Courfeyrac’s right.”</p>
<p>“I am always right,” Courfeyrac says with a smile that fades into seriousness, “but thank you. I’m glad for your agreement.”</p>
<p>After that, there’s no debate at all; Enjolras looks from Courfeyrac to Feuilly to Combeferre and then asks if there are any objections. Unsurprisingly, no one speaks up in favor of letting the poor go hungry.</p>
<p>“We’ll need to discuss the finances of this,” Enjolras says. “Combeferre, Bahorel, Prouvaire, if you can—oh, Feuilly, a word before you go.”</p>
<p>Feuilly stops in the act of gathering up his coat.</p>
<p>Enjolras crosses the room with a few quick steps. The light gleams in his hair; he looks more like a statue than a man. “Thank you,” he says, quietly but not at all in a whisper. The sincerity in his voice carries like a bell. “It was a good idea of yours, to reach out to ally with these other communities—and a good thing to remind us that their needs aren’t mine, too.”</p>
<p>“I…” For a moment Feuilly isn’t sure what to say. “I’m glad to help.”</p>
<p>“Suggest things more often.” Enjolras nods, a benediction, then after a moment turns back to the group.</p>
<p>It’s <i>not</i> wage reform—a delightful change.</p>
<p>If they do manage to wring some concessions out of the factory owners after all, Feuilly thinks as he starts down the stairs of the café Musain, it might be something to try to teach himself something other than French. There’d be no harm at all in having someone among les Amis who could speak Polish.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The June Rebellion of 1832 did have a sizable refugee component—exactly the sorts of people whom Feuilly was supposed to be reminding les Amis about, but never seemed to have been asked to do so. It’s another one of those weird lapses of Hugo’s; Marius meets les Amis in 1828, and associates with them more or less from then until their deaths, but the July Revolution doesn’t seem to affect them at all, and Poland’s defiance in response (Russia attempted to send Polish-born soldiers to stamp out the sparks of revolution), which you might expect to have been the reason for Feuilly’s affinity and sympathy <i>for</i> Poland, was something I didn’t find out about until I was researching for this ’verse. The Carbonari was an Italian revolutionary society that also got involved in France in the 1830 and 1831 (Lyons) attempts; I only learned about it footnoting 3.4.1, not reading it.</p>
<p>Trying to track down the locations and habits of the refugee populations in Paris in 1831-32, as someone who is not natively fluent in French and at a time when I can’t just pop over to the library and speak to a librarian, was a massive struggle at which I mostly failed. I did learn that the same so-called revolutionary quarter I’ve become very familiar with researching a later fic in this series was a neighborhood of Paris in which many immigrants settled—that would be the area somewhere around the Corinthe (i.e. near Les Halles). I think. I’ve only got Wikipedia for that one, I’m afraid. (The rue du Renard is in that general area (many many thanks to <a href="https://chanvrerie.net/paris/maps/"><b>Chanvrerie</b> for the maps</a>), but I have no idea what was there in 1832.) The synagogue mentioned is the Synagogue Nazareth, on the rue de Notre-Dame de Nazareth. Protestant churches are listed on Girard’s 1830 map of Paris as temples, so “temples” is what I’ve gone with.</p>
<p>The newspaper which Combeferre would theoretically not mind being eaten missed by one calendar year being L’Univers, which I do not recommend reading about unless you like being furious at dead French editors. Le Mémorial catholique was an anti-revolutionary, anti-Republic newspaper; it ceased printing in 1830.</p>
<p>I once again feel the need to add a note that the specifics here may, or may not, be anachronistic, but the general is not; les Amis were implicitly and explicitly up to their ears in almost any kind of social reform you care to name, and it’s most explicit with Jehan, who “had compassion for women, wept over children […] delved into the social questions—wages, capital, credit, marriage, religion, freedom of thought, freedom to love, education, the penal system, destitution, association, property, production and distribution”. Combeferre gives les Amis their philosophy and he gets his from some people who had some genuinely good ideas; Jehan, meanwhile, is very clearly applying those ideas to more than the immediate shooting-people future.</p>
<p>In French, which genders all its nouns, you cannot say “a worker”: you <i>must</i> say either “a [male] worker” or “a [female] worker”.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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